


Resurrection

by Mortissimo



Category: Resident Evil 4 - Fandom
Genre: AU, Canonical Character Death, Character Death Fix, M/M, Weirdness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-14
Updated: 2011-01-14
Packaged: 2017-10-14 18:21:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/152114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mortissimo/pseuds/Mortissimo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leon makes it back from Spain. Luis doesn't. This is a problem, but Leon can fix it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The Character Death is canon and happens in the middle of the game. I don't feel that counts as a spoiler, but it's in the warnings anyway?
> 
> Call this an author confusion warning: I've played only Resident Evil 4 and have seen only the first and third movies, so that (and Wikipedia) is what I know about Resident Evil. Keep it in mind. For the purposes of this they take place in the same universe, which I hear is impossible.
> 
> Anyway, carry on.

They say you never know someone until you fight beside him. Or maybe they say you never know someone until you fight him. In the span of what would be the worst day of his life, Leon knew Luis. He tracked Luis' trail, read Luis' clandestine notes, and envied Luis' graceful exits. Leon and Luis fought back-to-back, as Luis quipped and Leon tossed sweat-clumped hair out of his eyes and let his body do nothing more than reloading and shooting, shooting and reloading, keeping his eyes and his gun on the villagers and keeping his mind on Luis. There was no way he couldn't, and even when he couldn't see Luis he knew what spare, savage beauty the man in battle was.

    They say that relationships formed in stressful situations never work out, and Leon was pretty sure they said it in _Speed_ but that doesn't make it any less true. It's not true because the people fall apart, though; it's true because any love that perfect is fated to end in death. Leon knew he loved Luis from the moment he felt the pressure of the man's shoulderblades against him and heard the smile in his voice. Leon knew that Luis loved him because nobody fights so hard for a stranger he isn't a little in love with, assuming money's not involved, and because Luis said so.

    There was also the kiss. it happened in the house, the one Leon thinks of as The House, where they had stood shoulder-to-shoulder and fought, not for freedom or life or the girl upstairs, but for each other, out of love. Leon knew this was true because it was how he felt, and when he followed Luis to make a goodbye Leon found himself caught around the waist, and pressed to the wall, and kissed. It was too short, could never have been anything but too short an amount of time before Leon found himself cold and alone, his heart pounding and his hands shaking where they clutched at the air. Initially, he'd thought he couldn't feel anything more painful than that separation, but when he saw the tip of that monster's limb break through Luis' sternum, Leon knew what it felt like to die.

    Leon won, of course, if you could call it winning. Someone other than Leon might have called it a Pyrrhic victory. He felt nothing when the President hung the medal of honor around his neck at a sparsely-attended ceremony. He felt nothing when Ashley's arms followed, and he could hear her heartbeat, and knew she was safe at long last. He felt nothing when he finally, finally arrived at the sparse apartment he called 'home', in the interstitial place between cities, in the middle of nowhere. Leon felt nothing until he remembered, with a jolt, and threw the narrow room out of order in searching. When he found it, he threw his clothes off his bed and lay the attaché case carefully down on the bedspread, popping the latch and removing the guns one by one, reverently, with gestures strikingly different from the one he'd used to tug off the medal and toss it on his kitchen counter. When all the guns and the plants and the spray were gone, he carefully ran a hand under the black foam, lifting a corner, and pulled it out.

    Leon laid it gently on the worn quilt, in front of the beaten black case and surrounded by myriad well-used and hastily-upgraded weapons. With the reverence due a saint's reliquary, Leon raised a shaking hand and stroked it, very gently. At the rough, truncated end, he continued the gesture, smoothing his palm up over an invisible form until he paused, hand hovering above the pillow. The spell was broken. Until that moment Leon had not fully understood why it was that he had, after he'd felt the last of the breath escape Luis' lips, half-listening to the sharp static that was Ashley's cries, pulled out his knife with surprisingly steady hands and sawed off Luis' ring finger. Leon hadn't given it enough thought to put a rationale to it before he had hidden the finger, still sticky with that precious blood, under the foam of his weapons case. He might have considered it a token, a memory, but there were easier tokens to retrieve, less bloody ones, and Leon knew even then he'd never be able or want to erase the burn of Luis' living hands on his body. It might have been a promise for revenge, but Leon wouldn't have kept it after, if that were true, and it wasn't as though he hadn't been planning on killing Saddler regardless. Until that moment, kneeling on his threadbare carpet in front of his threadbare quilt, even a gaze filmed over by the tears he could finally allow to flow not failing to notice that the hand that should have covered Luis' cheek lay on empty space, Leon had not known why he had taken Luis' finger. It was only in this place, where he'd locked away the horror of his only day as a police officer in Raccoon City, that he knew what to do.

    The number Thompson had given him didn't have a name attached to it. When the ringing on the line finally stopped, Leon felt the bottom drop out of this world. The idea that maybe success in his previous quest, now barely a distant memory, had caused failure in this one, was as consuming as his previous apathy had been. Then Leon heard breathing, soft but tainted by a faint rattle, on the other end of the line, and for the first time in a month he almost felt like smiling.

    "My name is Leon Kennedy," he said, steadily, into the receiver. "I think you know who I am." The man on the other end gave him a wet chuckle.

    "Yes. I know who you are." Leon waited as the man cleared his throat, apparently painfully. "You've caused a lot of trouble for us, Mr. Kennedy. The kind of trouble that inspires people to run from those for whom they've caused it, not call them up in the middle of the night." Here the man paused to cough, and Leon didn't feel at all sorry for him.

    "I must be a serious pest for you, then. One you'd like to see no longer a problem?" Leon's heart pounded, his blood rushed in his ears, his mouth was dry. The man chuckled.

    "An accurate assessment, Mr. Kennedy, although one wonders if you are really so lacking in friends that you really need to call up your enemies at three in the morning to have your ego stroked?" Kneeling in his apartment, looking down at the recovered finger of the only man he will ever love, Leon grinned. It was not a pleasant expression, even on him; it was one that pulled the lips back from the teeth in order to get a clearer bite.

    "I'm going to ask you a question, and then depending on the answer I'm either going to make you an offer or hang up. Either way, I won't be a problem for you anymore." Leon swallowed, thickly. The knowledge that he would not be apart from Luis for long, one way or another, was powerful enough to make him feel faint.

    "You intrigue me, Mr. Kennedy. Do go on," the voice rasped. Leon tried to breathe.

    "Is it true that your company can make copies of people? Real people, with memories and personalities?" Laying beside the severed finger on the bed, Leon's hand shook as the man began to laugh, wetly and unpleasantly.

    "Yes, Mr. Kennedy. Yes we can." The air, which Leon hadn't noticed draining out of the room, suddenly rushed back in, and Leon took a breath. And another. "The memories are more difficult, but we have had significant success with producing duplicates who possess complete personalities." Leon didn't ask, didn't even want to know. He was still grinning.

    "How much do you need? How much of him do you need for this?"

    "Anything with DNA, Mr. Kennedy. Anything with DNA. Even a few cells will do. Even a little blood. You'd be surprised what science can accomplish in this day and age." Hard enough that it would have hurt, had it been attached to anything, Leon wrapped a hand around the finger and tightened his grip. He wanted to laugh, or cry, or both. On the phone, the man's voice only strengthened.

    "Now, Mr. Kennedy, this process is not cheap, but I believed you mentioned an offer...?" The question hung in the air like choking smoke, but Leon couldn't make himself regret. For the first time since he'd touched Luis' warm skin, Leon felt alive.

    "I'll work for you. I'll do whatever you want if you can give him back to me." He shuddered, feeling as though a great burden had been lifted from him, feeling weightless. The silence on the other end was lengthy.

    "Mr. Kennedy," the man said at last, barely a rasp to his voice, "you have a deal. Expect your ride in an hour, and pack light." Leon closed his eyes, smiling beatifically at the sound of the dial tone as the man on the other end of the line disconnected. In some distant corner of his mind, he was aware that he had sold his soul to something worse than the devil, but if it brought Luis back... He'd have killed Ashley to bring Luis back. This was nothing.

    The finger, Luis' finger, was the first thing Leon settled into the attaché case, between the foam and the cold, battered metal. Then followed the guns, each meticulously checked and re-loaded, the ammunition, packaged in worn English and worn Spanish, and his cell phone. Leon latched the case and stood, taking nothing else with him as he shut the lights off and left his apartment to wait for his ride. He didn't look back, not at the pictures of friends and family lining his coffee table, not at the files he'd spread out on the counter, not at the mess of things in his bedroom that would lead the agents, breaking in months later to investigate his disappearance, to believe there had been a struggle. He didn't look back at the medal of honor, cold metal on the countertop. None of these things had any significance for him anymore.

    Leon sat down on the bottom concrete step of the flight of stairs, and waited.


	2. Chapter 2

Leon broke ties with his past less easily than he had anticipated. When he had signed himself over to Umbrella on a wing and a prayer and a startling amount of trust, he'd expected to be sent on covert missions, and sometimes he was. Sometimes, though, he sat in an underground base for days and read a book, or played chess, poorly, or poker, well. Leon did not expect that he would be working with any of the 'old guard' of Umbrella's security forces, or even that there would be an 'old guard'. In retrospect he should have expected that they would be human, that they would eat and sleep and make stupid jokes just like anyone else, or that he would find himself making stupid jokes with them. He didn't expect any of them to have heard of him, either, but they had, and especially in the first year he had borne the weight of their whispers with tight shoulders and compressed lips. Time was difficult to reckon, shipped between countries and living in bunkers, but Leon guessed it must have been eighteen months before he confronted the others about what they'd been saying, and he was shocked to find much of it was awed, and very little insulting. The soldiers had heard of his previous conflicts with Umbrella, and whether it was the overwhelming odds or the part where most of his troubles were with Umbrella's mistakes, few of them begrudged him for it.

If there was any one thing they got on him for, it was his frequent visits to the basement labs, and even that tapered off as the years leapt past. It was only in the last few months of what had to be Leon's fifth year that he started hearing the whispers again. The only guy who called Leon 'Prince Charming' to his face got his jaw broken, a week later, when Leon realized what the man had meant. It wasn't for his sake, Leon had insisted when he was brought before the man who was formally his commander. It was for Luis. Leon couldn't sit there and listen to them talk about Luis that way. Leon stood at attention when he said it, or as close as he ever got, back straight and eyes dark, and his commander believed him, because Leon had been telling the truth. There was a slight relaxation in the line of his shoulders as he was dismissed without further comment, as though Umbrella could or would fire him, that reappeared suddenly and painfully when his commander called Leon back in and slid him a slip of paper.

"It's from R&D," the man said, looking at Leon significantly from under his narrow eyebrows. Leon reached out to take it, watched himself do so, dirty nails and half-gloves. He had time to count every tile of linoleum on the floor before he had the paper between his fingers, ripping the corners in his eagerness to unfold it.

Leon read.

And breathed.

And bolted for the door, leaving the crumpled note in his wake. They hadn't let him into the room with the tubes before, only allowed him to sit in a broom closet with a flickering black-and-white security feed and watch a cluster of cells become an embryo, become a fetus, become a child, become Luis. It was only when the body in the tube had begun to match what Leon caught hints of beneath the clothes, sharp bones curled protectively in the synthetic amniotic fluid, that the scientists let him in. Leon had pressed a palm against the glass, watching the rebreather and the clone's ribs move slightly with each breath. Time, a chancy thing for him ever since Spain, had seemed to liquefy and expand to fill all the cracks in the moment, holding him suspended in it like amber. He watched the ebb and flow of Luis' hair, the slight movements of his eyes beneath his eyelids, the curling and uncurling of his toes at dreams or reflex. Beneath his skin, made pale by the bluish light of the lab, Leon could see the play of Luis' muscle and bone. He'd been learning Spanish, or trying, so Leon whispered broken, ungrammatical things into the glass, his eyes slid half-shut, secure in the knowledge that he was then and there apart from time, and unseeable by the outside world. When Leon ran out of words he only murmured _te amo_ , over and over, because it was true, and because he remembered Luis whispering it to him as they kissed. Luis couldn't hear, but one of the lab technicians touched his shoulder to let him know she was shutting down for the night, and the fragile moment cracked. That was the week before.

The week after, Leon punched the man who had made the comment about Prince Charming and Sleeping Beauty, was reprimanded by his superior officer, and received a note that they were going to take Luis out of the tank. His heartbeat echoed in his ears as he slowed his pace to approach the door to the lab. It was only then, in the last seconds, that he doubted whether he had made the right decision, rather than merely the one he wanted. It had been such a part of his world view for the past few years that it startled Leon to think that he might not have chosen correctly, enough to make him stumble in his steps. He might even have paused, if the door hadn't opened ahead of him, showing the lab and the doctors, but mostly the harried lab tech who reached out to take his shoulder and guide him inside. He moved as though in a dream, as though underwater. All the scientists were looking at him, and every one eyeing him with anxiety, restlessness. It had been their work, he realized, for five years. Luis had been their magnum opus, a work of love as much for the workers as the patron. Their happiness as much as Leon's rested in Luis being Luis, though Leon doubted they'd have the same criteria. None of them, after all, had really known Luis, not like Leon had. It was with maddening slowness that he moved, then, coming to stand before the tank. For the first time since he entered the room, Leon looked directly at it. Luis' clear eyes stared cooly back at him, startling Leon a step backwards.

"He started to wake up on his own," the tech explained to him, somewhere in the knot of scientists. Leon couldn't look away from Luis' face, from those eyes and their slowly fluttering lashes. "We thought you'd want to be here when we take him out."

"Thanks," Leon whispered hoarsely. Nothing of the world existed for him outside of the depths of Luis' eyes, startling in their lucidity. Far away, someone gave a command, and the liquid in the tank began to drain. Leon reclaimed the step he had retreated and took another, and another. Luis held his gaze, or he walked along Luis' line-of-sight. Leon didn't care which. The black spider of the rebreather over the bottom half of Luis' face made his expression unreadable, yet more so as the liquid retreated below his collarbones and left his hair plastered to his cheeks, left a thin sheen of slime on the thick glass between them. To Leon's distant surprise, Luis' feet took his weight readily. He had none of the newborn, kittenish weakness that Leon had imagined so many times, and all of the steel core Leon remembered. In his ears, his heartbeat pounded like heavy bass. Then the glass descended, slowly, into the steel grating beneath their feet, and Leon stood face-to-face, for the first time in five years, with the reason he had sacrificed his life's quest. With hands as steady as the day they had removed Luis' left ring finger, Leon reached up and unbuckled the rebreather, dropped it at their feet. The clone, Luis, drew in first one shuddering breath of air, and then another, blinking with fierce suddenness against the hair in his eyes. Leon's heart ached as Luis' lips curled into a smirk, tugging the faint lines on his face into proper order.

"We have got to stop meeting like this," he murmured, finally raising a shaking hand to rake his hair back out of his eyes. Leon's mouth worked, soundless and useless, but when Luis' eyes rolled back into his head and he sagged, Leon was there to catch him and bear him gently to the floor as the doctors and lab technicians crowded around.


	3. Chapter 3

His head pillowed on the rough cotton of the infirmary's sheets, Leon dreamed. There was nothing remarkable about his dreams, outside of their sheer normalcy. In his dreams, Leon lived aboveground, in an apartment, like normal people. He read books, though not as often as he watched television. He went to work, at a normal job. He had a dog, although it may have been more appropriate to say that they had a dog. The fact of Luis' presence there was so much a given that he was barely in the dreams, flowing through the edges with the ease of long acquaintance. Leon tended to make breakfast, because he got up first, and Luis tended to make dinner, because he got home first. They slept in the same bed, sometimes waking in each other's arms and sometimes not. They were not loveless but not lustful, not needful but not solitary. Leon's hand, where it covered Luis' on the bedspread, was lined and spotted with age.

Leon dreamed about The House again, the same dream he always had. He couldn't remember much of Raccoon City, and he couldn't remember much of Spain, but he remembered the kiss as clearly as if it had been yesterday, and he dreamed it in such close detail that he often woke to a pounding heart, reaching for his gun, with the notion that time had repeated itself. Leon dreamed the kiss again, and he dreamed it as clearly as when it had happened.

The gentle tug of a hand carding through his hair woke Leon slowly. The fingers themselves were familiar after years of remembering how it felt to have them tangled up in his hair for the long minutes they'd stayed pressed together, memory itself clear enough that Leon was sure he'd recognize Luis' fingerprints by touch alone. The similarity blended the dream into reality, closely enough that when Leon blinked his eyes open he found himself mouthing the sheets and wondering how Luis had kept his collar so clean.

" _¿Despierta?_ " Leon sat up slowly, pressing back into the touch on his head, trying not to show his displeasure as it fell away. The fact of Luis sitting up in bed, looking at him with a slightly puzzled smile, was so obvious that Leon suddenly wasn't sure it hadn't always been that way.

" _N-no sabo,_ " Leon confessed, stumbling over the unfamiliar words. He probably got it wrong, because Luis shook his head and laughed.

"You're awake." He found himself smiling, too, caught up in the amber of Luis' eyes.

"So are you."

"A little unexpectedly."

"You remember." It wasn't really a question, but Luis nodded anyway. Leon's fingers itched to twine around Luis', to lay them out and count them and assure himself that none were missing, that the ring fingers both went from joint to knuckle to knuckle to nail without interruption. He had fallen asleep to the regular lull of Luis' heart monitor, his hand curled around Luis' wrist to track the pulse by touch.

"I was pretty sure I was dead." Luis laughed, and Leon couldn't look at him anymore. "How did you get me out?" Leon looked at his hands, curled tightly into the loose fabric of his pants above his knees. Even clenched as they were, they were still shaking badly. More than anything else, what Leon wanted was to touch him, to hold him like he had hours and hours ago when he had collapsed into Leon's arms, but without this bloom of panic in Leon's chest. Leon had thought that just his being there would fix everything, would give Leon the spark of life he had felt, after so long feeling nothing, outside that house in that godforsaken Spanish hellhole. When Leon had caught him by the wrist, and kissed him, and Luis hadn't said a word but had only smiled. Leon remembered it exactly.

"You-" There was no way to describe what Leon had felt when he saw the claw emerge from Luis' chest, except to say that he had felt it. Leon had felt the blow with such clarity that for months afterward, whenever he dressed or undressed near a mirror, he had been surprised not to find a scar in the center of his chest. There was no scar on Luis' chest either, and none on his hand. "You didn't make it." Luis' stillness was remarkable, in the periphery of Leon's vision.

"Am I one of them?" It sounded like a casual question, but Leon could hear the pace of the heart monitor pick up, and so he made himself meet Luis' eyes before he answered, so Luis could read there that Leon meant it.

"No. You're you. You're still you, you're just..." Leon struggled with the words, but Luis didn't prompt him, only waited, patiently blank, and Leon was so grateful he almost smiled. "You're another you."

"I'm a clone?" That one was a question, so he nodded, and that time when Luis laughed Leon didn't drop his eyes, but watched the way Luis' eyes lit. "That explains where my tattoos went. Am I property of the United States government, then?" The words came lightly to Luis, but to Leon they felt like accusations, like piled stones. He couldn't hold Luis' gaze any longer.

"Umbrella Corporation." It was barely a whisper, but Luis heard.

"You were working for Umbrella?" Luis let out a low whistle. He didn't sound anxious or angry; he sounded interested. He asked like he'd ask if Leon worked for Microsoft, or Walmart, or the convenience store down the street, like it was nothing. Like it was a job. Leon found himself on his feet without knowing how he got there, the clatter of his fallen chair echoing much longer than it had any right to.

"No."

Luis looked at him, waiting, but Leon didn't have anything to say. Leon left, brushing past the technicians waiting in the hall, ignoring their questions without even hearing that they were asking him questions, shouldering his way into the bathroom and startling the doctor washing his hands at the sink, who left without drying them, kicking open the door to the first stall, dropping to his knees, his stomach heaving. Leon remembered the smile in Luis' eyes, the taste of Luis' mouth, the feel of Luis' long, fine fingers against his skin, but Leon hadn't remembered Luis' nonchalant arrogance. Leon had remembered the way Luis had whispered his love into Leon's teeth, but not the words that hid inside those hastily-scrawled notes Leon had found later. There was no question that Leon loved Luis, but kneeling there on the cold tile, the porcelain rim of the toilet bowl pressing against his palms, Leon wasn't sure why.

At the sink, he filled his mouth with water and spat. His reflection looked blank, like a mask or a stranger. He thought maybe his hair was too long. Beneath his eyes, the pale lavender circles were more pronounced than usual, even though that had been the most serenely Leon had slept in much more than five years. The peaceful vision of domesticity wasn't unique in Leon's history, but the uninterrupted nature of it was. He couldn't remember what it was he dreamt about before Raccoon City, but after he'd have this recurring nightmare where he came home to find some thing eating the face off his newly-wed wife. The worst part of the dream wasn't the dream itself, of course, but after Leon woke up, when he realized he had no idea what the woman he'd loved in the dream looked like without her face gnawed off. Or Leon would dream of pulling his battered but family-safe Subaru SUV up to the school, waiting for his kids to hop in, and driving off, only to glance in the rear-view mirror to see things that were not his children anymore staring silently back. Or he'd be grocery-shopping, his cart half-full of meat before he noticed what kind of meat, what kinds of steaks and roasts and small, clutching hands he'd filled his basket with.

Between Raccoon City and Spain, Leon hadn't had a dream that wasn't a nightmare.

After Spain, Leon's nightmares hadn't gone away, but there were moments of soft respite, of seconds or minutes spent clutched in Luis' arms. They were all the same long, rushed kiss, Luis' hands burning into his hips, and they were all true, and gradually the dreams of that one stolen moment with Luis grew until it was the only thing Leon dreamed about. The moments before, the long battle and the breathless banter with Luis and Ashley, they were always different, but the kiss, with Luis' hands pinned up above his head, was always the same.

When Leon went back to his quarters to sleep that night, he did not dream at all.


	4. Chapter 4

They moved Luis in with him a few days later, or rather Luis moved in with him a few days later, walking and talking and everything. Leon had never used the spare bedroom and bathroom that had come with his most recent change of quarters, because he'd never had any reason to, and he'd always chalked his extra space up to a clerical error. With Luis there, though, Leon began to see the wisdom. It wasn't that he didn't want Luis around. The past five years made that clear enough. He just... Before he'd heard that laugh again, Leon had this idea that was close enough to a fairy tale that he'd broken the jaw of the first guy who mentioned it. He'd thought that even if Luis didn't remember anything, the force of what they had felt for each other on that one day would be enough to... Leon wasn't sure. He'd never been with a man and his last time with a woman was long ago and a bad idea to boot. All he knew was that he wanted what he had felt that night, the one flash of heat in a string of cold years, that kiss. It just didn't seem as though Leon would be getting it any time soon. Still, he was content to wait, even if it looked as if he might be waiting for a long time.

It was only after a few days that Leon came back, from a brief jaunt that hardly needed remembering, to an empty apartment. It was like a scene from a movie: Leon dropped the bag of groceries he'd been holding, oranges rolling every which-way. No baguette. His gun was drawn before he had a chance to think better of it, warm from body heat and half-empty from recent use. Leon flicked off the safety and kept his back to the wall, his heartbeat rushing in his ears. Try as he might, though, Leon found no sign of a struggle and no sign of Luis. Luis' sheets were askew but not unreasonably so. There was a shirt draped over his chair but that wasn't enough to prove anything.

It wasn't enough to prove they'd taken Luis away from him.

The whole elevator ride down to R&D, Leon fingered his gun anxiously. It wasn't that he liked any of the people he had to work with. It was more that he'd already been in one shoot-out today, and if they'd taken Luis away only to turn him into clone slurry, or whatever it was they did with bait that was no longer useful, Leon didn't think he was going to survive the second one.

He was so resigned to the idea of having to destroy the place in a second vengeance for the loss of the man he loved that Leon nearly shot his foot off when the door dinged open and he stood eye-to-eye with Luis. Amber eyes widened briefly, dipped down to take in the state of him, breathing hard. The gun. When Luis looked back up he was smiling, with the ease that comes with practice.

"Coming to meet me on my first day? That's sweet, _cariño._ " Luis stepped into the elevator and Leon stepped back, but Luis kept pressing until Leon's back hit the railing. The look in Luis' eyes was a lot less warm, but did nothing to quell the hammering of Leon's heart. For the first time since that night, when Luis had first backed him up against the wall, he could almost feel the heat of Luis' breath.

"Luis," he tried, stumbling over his words. "I-"

"Leon." Deftly, Luis took the gun from him, popped out the clip, pocketed it, and slid the unloaded gun back into its holster. Smooth, practiced movements. Leon reached out, but Luis pulled away. " _Más tarde. ¿Comprende? Más tarde._ " Leon nodded dumbly, frowning, because he wasn't sure he did understand. Luis had retreated to the other side of the elevator. He crossed his arms over his chest, and that was the first time Leon noticed the crisp white lab coat, starched and pressed, Luis' movement making brand new creases.

"They're making you work?"

"No." Luis shook his head, and smiled. "I want to work. I'm bored, I'm not doing anything else, and the depth of Umbrella's research?" He clicked his tongue against his teeth, impressed.

"You want to work with them?" Luis shrugged.

"They are not my first choice, but you made that choice for me." Leon dropped his eyes, tightened his grip on the railing behind him, and said nothing. The floor of the elevator was linoleum, scuffed but clean. He couldn't remember if he'd bought the shoes Luis was wearing or not.

"Then again," Luis went on, "I understand I'm only alive now because of you. The techs have some interesting stories." Leon had never been one to blush, but he thought he might have bitten the inside of his cheek, because he tasted blood. "You really brought them my finger?" Leon nodded. He wanted to say something, but his words were wrapped up in a ball, stuck in his throat. He couldn't risk looking up at Luis and finding condemnation there, so he didn't look up.

"Why would you do all this?" It was then that the doors slid open, and Leon pushed past Luis, eyes down. He moved quickly, though the brief brush of contact with Luis made him want to stop and stay, pressed there forever. Luis made no move to hold him, but followed him to their apartment.

Inside, Leon dropped to his knees and began to pick up the groceries he'd dropped in his sudden terror. Most everything was fine, though he had cracked one of the eggs, and had stepped on one of the oranges while he was canvassing. Everything else, though, he gathered into his arms and began to sort into its proper place, all the while with Luis' eyes burning into the back of his head.

"You thought they'd reneged on your agreement and taken me." It wasn't really question, but Leon supposed the situation was fairly obvious.

"Yes."

"So you grabbed your gun and went to the lab."

"Yes."

"To rescue me?"

"No." Truthfully, the idea that Luis would still be alive and waiting for him had never occurred to Leon.

"To get revenge, then?"

"Yes."

"You were going to storm in, with one gun and one clip, and kill every man and woman you've worked with for five years, because they decided you couldn't keep someone you have now known for less than a month altogether?"

"Yes," Leon said, and no more, because that was pretty much exactly it. When he set the can he was holding on the shelf above him, it rattled and fell, released from an unsteady grasp. He went to catch it but Luis was there first, pressed close behind him, hands steady as he set the can down where Leon had been unable to. They were nearly of a height, so Luis' chin fit neatly into the crook of Leon's neck, with an arm wrapped carefully around Leon's waist.

" _Cariño,_ I don't understand you at all." Leon felt as though he was going to shake to pieces, one hand gripping the countertop white-knuckled, the other sliding over and slipping into the gaps between Luis' fingers, pressing against his own abdomen. His heaving breaths moved them both, but Leon couldn't make himself stop. He felt light-headed, from the hyperventilation and from the warmth of Luis' skin against the side of his face.

"If you were dead again," was all Leon could say. Still, with Luis breathing in his ear, with his warmth, with his steady heartbeat, Leon could not convince himself that Luis was safe. "If you were dead again..."

"I'm right here," Luis observed, pressing a kiss below Leon's ear. Leon shuddered.

They stayed that way for a long time, pressed together, Leon's breath slowly evening out to match Luis'.

"Come to bed," Luis said, softly, eventually. Leon nodded. Luis led the way and Leon followed dumbly, watching Luis shrug out of his clothing as he went. In the dim light from the kitchen, Luis' skin shone like silver. There wasn't a single mark on him, and for a moment Leon felt acutely uncomfortable in his own scarred skin, before he remembered what Luis had said when he woke up. About the tattoos. Luis was down to boxers, which meant Leon didn't hear his name the first time, had to look up suddenly and apologize. Fully-clothed with Luis nearly naked, dusted finely with dark hair. Slipping off his coat, Leon fumbled ineffectually with the buckles to his shoulder holster, his hands still shaking. Mercifully, Luis intervened after a few moments, deft fingers making short work of Leon's holster and shirt, apparently all at once. When he knelt to unlace Leon's boots, Leon felt a sudden twist of desire. He reached out a hand, carefully, and followed the line of a stray lock of hair. Luis glanced up, met his eyes, and smiled.

"Another night." Leon nodded, and Luis laughed. Not a cruel laugh. When he stood, Leon stepped out of his boots, slid out of his jeans, and followed Luis to bed. Luis curled behind him and pulled him close, close enough to feel each of Luis' movements when he breathed. It didn't take long for Leon to stop shaking, wrapped up in the proof of Luis' life, and from there he slipped easily into sleep.


	5. Chapter 5

They fell into a sort of pattern like that. Leon knew where Luis was going during the day, and didn't ride the elevator with murder in his eyes anymore, but they slept in each other's arms more often than they didn't. Leon had never really noticed before that what he did for Umbrella took him away from their hidden compound almost as often as it held him there. Given time to reflect, he supposed it had something to do with not having somebody to come home to before. His nightmares were nearly gone even when he was apart from Luis, and when they were together, Leon remembered how to laugh. it wasn't even something he'd been consciously aware of not doing anymore, but one day he did and Luis said something, and Leon realized he couldn't remember the last time he had.

It was the little things that had changed, rather than the big picture. He still did the same work for Umbrella that he had been doing for five years, still came back to the same flat in the same underground bunker. The next time he came home and collapsed in the shower with the heat all the way up and his clothes still on, someone noticed. That was different.

He must not have heard Luis knock, or else Luis didn't bother knocking. The hand on the frosted glass startled Leon badly enough that he thought his heart might hammer out of his chest. With one hand under his arm, the other at his hip, Leon was sure that if he'd still been armed, he'd have shot without thinking. It took far too long to remember that he lived with someone.

"You hurt?" Leon wasn't sure. The water swirling into the drain had run out of its reddish tint after a few seconds, but that was just because he hadn't gotten close for more than a couple of them. His head and shoulders stung a little from the water. He didn't think that was what Luis meant.

"No."

"They kept you out a while this time." It had been two days. Not his longest deployment by a long shot, but the longest since Luis had woken up. Leon hugged his knees to his chest. On the other side of the door, he saw the shadow of Luis slide down the wall, heard the scrape of his jeans against the tile.

"Yeah."

"Anyone ever tell you you used to be a lot chattier?" Leon wasn't sure how much time had passed. It didn't feel very long. Umbrella never ran out of hot water, he'd found out from previous sessions. So that was out as a gauge of time.

"No." At least that as the truth. Nobody he spoke to had ever spoken to him before he defected, or if they had, he didn't remember and they didn't mention it.

"What do they have you doing, _cariño_?"

"I don't want to talk about it." Part of him, a large part of him, wanted Luis to open the door and pull Leon into his arms. Part of him wanted to kiss Luis, like he had that night, protected from the rain by the eaves. Part of him wished he hadn't removed his holster. At least then Leon wouldn't have to answer that question.

"Do you why I was in _el pueblo_ in the first place, Leon? _¿Antes que se armó la gorda?_ "

"You said you were a cop. In Madrid." Leon raked his hair back out of his face, frowning at the wall in front of him. He knew better, of course. He'd found the handfuls of paper stuffed haphazardly around the village. For a while he'd hoped that they were forgeries, designed to break his trust in Luis, but the lie wasn't especially convincing, especially in the face of mounting evidence of the truth. Still, he hoped that Luis would try to uphold it. Leon had liked that fiction.

"I think we both know I lied. I was working for them."

"The Los Illuminados," Leon muttered against his knee. He'd known. Of course he'd known. Hearing it from Luis was a different matter.

" _Los Illuminados,_ " Luis corrected offhandedly. " _Sí._ I helped them make _las plagas_ what they were when you met them. I made them stronger. I helped that cult wipe out an entire village, and if you hadn't gotten there and their plans had progressed, I would have been responsible for handing them the world." Leon squeezed his eyes shut, hugged his knees tighter. He wasn't sure if he'd imagined the note of pride in Luis' voice or not, but it did its job. A small spark of the zeal he had once felt in his crusade against Umbrella lit, and he raised his head against the spray.

"I do what I did, but faster. I... Fix Umbrella's mistakes." The water's heat was too much on his bare skin, so Leon dropped his head again, staring into the water. "A scientist in the Midwest got infected. Spread it to the rest of his building. Before symptoms showed up, he went home. Infected his wife. Their son. Their son went to school that morning."

"Leon..."

"It was a new strain, a mutation, and the cure didn't work. The wife was dead when I arrived. The school quarantined. The students checked more thoroughly. Most of the kids were fine, but J- but the kid's class made lunch together that day."

" _Madre de Dios,_ Leon."

"They're getting better at containing these things, so it was just that class, but... Have you ever shot a child, Luis?" Nothing. "One of them jumped at me. He had red eyes, and his teeth... I panicked. Then the rest of them..." Leon broke off, retching, but there was nothing left for him to throw up. He hadn't eaten that day, and apparently there's only so much bile your body wants to give up. Leon couldn't tell, but he thought they sat in silence for a long time after that, with nothing but the sound of the water.

The door slid open, quietly. Leon blinked. Luis crouched beside the shower, eye-level with Leon, giving him a look he didn't recognize.

"You sold your soul for me. You keep selling your soul for me, for... What has it been, five years?" Luis almost looked angry, eyes narrowed, but his voice was soft. He reached up to shut off the water, and Leon shivered in the sudden absence of heat.

"Yes."

"I don't understand you. I don't even know you, but you hate these people, you hunted them for years, and you joined them to bring me back? Why?" Leon looked away, swallowing hard. If there was anything he had been sure of for those five years, it was that he loved Luis. Loved him to the exclusion of all else, with a fire that burned out all the other friends, allies, and allegiances he had once known. He'd assumed Luis would feel the same.

"Leon." He turned, hair falling into his eyes, blinking furiously. "I don't know what you want from me." Luis' hand, spread out on Leon's knee. A single point of warmth, squeezing gently.

"More time. You said... There wasn't enough time." Those words, hot against his ear, the wall rough against his back, Luis pressed against him. He remembered it like it was yesterday.

"Did I?" Luis sounded, at best, mildly puzzled, and Leon felt ill.

"At the house. After the firefight." They had told Leon, over and over again, to expect some loss of memory, but Luis had repeatedly insisted that he remembered everything about that day.

"I remember the fight..."

"After the fight, when you left. I followed you, and you said that was never enough time, and you-" He broke off, raised his hand, and laid it over Luis' face. Fingers fanning along Luis' cheekbone, Leon's thumb tracing his lips. Beneath his touch, they parted slightly, and the slight touch of Luis' teeth sent a thrill of heat through Leon. "You kissed me."

Luis frowned.

"Leon-"

Leon pressed his fingers over Luis' mouth, gently but firmly, trying to stop the flow of words. There was a sense of foreboding he didn't recognize, a sharp and sudden need for silence.

Luis lifted his hand away.

"I would not object to the experiment, _cariño_ , but believe me, I have never kissed you." Just like that, Leon knew it was true. The moment, so carefully preserved in the amber of Leon's memory, fell apart at the slightest touch from outside. He'd never kissed Luis, who'd never loved him, outside of a dream.

Leon didn't know how he got back to his room. He sat on the floor, back against the door, and he was aware of someone pounding on it from the other side. In his hand was a gun he recognized only dimly; he must have taken it from Luis. It tasted like Luis, a little, or it tasted like he smelled. Mostly the barrel tasted like metal, resting against Leon's teeth, and sulfur.

He'd murdered hundreds over a hallucination of a stranger.

Leon's wet hands were slippery on the grip, his finger sliding on the trigger.

An especially strong kick and the doorknob was skittering over the floor. Leon let himself be pushed with the door, let the barrel fall from his mouth, scraping his teeth along the way.

"I can't..." Luis dropped to his knees beside him. The gun followed the doorknob, and Leon made no move to follow it. There was a look of fury in Luis' eyes that made him painfully beautiful.

" _¡Gilipollas! ¡Comemierdas!_ "

"I'm-" Luis hit him. The blow was more surprising than it was painful, which is not to say it wasn't painful as well.

" _¡Cabrón!_ " Hands wrapped in the collar, Luis dragged Leon up by his shirt.

"I don't-"

" _Que te calles._ " Luis slammed Leon back into the door, and kissed him.

It was nothing like any of the dreams. Luis kissed with his teeth, or he did when he was angry. It was too short a time before Luis released him, and Leon let his head drop back against the door with a wet thunk, his eyes closed.

"I didn't-"

"I told you to shut up, idiot." This time, Luis was much less gentle, and much more impatient, removing Leon's boots. Leon's shirt, he used to drag Leon to his feet, then pulled it off. Leon's pants and boxers hit the floor at the same time, leaving Leon stumbling as Luis pushed him towards the bed. He fell back, landing on his elbows, and before Leon could so much as catch his balance Luis was on him. He was already half-hard before Luis touched him, but a few quick strokes from Luis brought Leon to full attention. Leon could already feel the edge of orgasm approaching as Luis jerked him roughly, his hands twitching anxiously at his sides.

"Luis," he groaned softly, the sound choking off as Luis abruptly stopped and tightened his grip.

"Long _e,_ long _u. ¿Comprende? Luis._ " Leon bucked as Luis gave his cock a sharp squeeze. " _¡Repita!_ "

" _Luis!_ " Leon arched into Luis' hand, but Luis refused to move, grinning.

"Close enough." He bent his head and slid his mouth over Leon's cock, tonguing the head and stroking the base. Leon wound his fingers into Luis' hair and tried to remember how to breathe. His hips moved helplessly, little stuttering thrusts that he couldn't quite remember how to control. His pulse was a dull rushing in his ears, and before he knew it he was coming, crying out and arching off the bed and leaving Luis sputtering.

"Sorry," Leon rasped, as Luis dragged himself up the bed and captured Leon's mouth in a kiss, grinding unsubtly against Leon's hip. Leon curled an arm around Luis' waist and with his other hand unbuckled Luis' belt and unbuttoned his jeans. Luis was already hard, dripping onto Leon's sheets as Leon curled fingers around him. It was the first time he'd touched another man's cock, if not the first time he'd wanted to, but Leon assumed the principle was more or less the same. He stroked, hard and fast, and Luis moaned into his mouth. He'd have fingernail-marks and bruises on his biceps tomorrow. Luis broke the kiss to groan in earnest, his hips working in quick counterpoint to Leon's rhythm.

" _Te amo,_ " Leon whispered into the scant space between them, unable to help himself, and Luis spattered his side with come.


	6. Chapter 6

Later, Leon woke up. There was no natural sunlight in the underground bunker he rarely called home in so many words, but the UV panel across the room had begun to glow. The temperature down there was always unnaturally clement, so nobody ever really needed the sheets they'd kicked off the bed. The soft sound beneath his ear was the beating of Luis' heart. He'd fallen asleep to it and he awoke to it, their legs and fingers entangled. Luis smelled a little like cordite, and a little like antiseptic, and a lot like sex. Leon untangled their fingers, their legs, and sat up. Where he'd lain there was no scar to tell the tale of Luis' death. There was nothing to show he had ever been anything but alive. Leon had seen before, in the tank, but he hadn't tasted the spot until that night.

He slid out of bed, stepping carefully around their respective clothing and Luis' discarded gun, and went into the kitchen. Leon was in the midst of reaching for a mixing bowl when he heard Luis' bed creak. The sound didn't so much as startle him, and when Leon felt heat behind him, he leaned back, and Luis was there. As though he always had been.

" _¿Que haces?_ "

"Pancakes." Leon didn't know it in Spanish.

"For breakfast?" Over his shoulder, he frowned at Luis, who frowned back at him.

"What else would they be for?"

"Dessert." Like it was obvious.

"Spain is weird." Luis laughed into the curve of Leon's neck, and Leon dropped the spoon into the batter.

" _Ay, cariño._ " Behind him, Luis was all warm life, and Leon could feel Luis' erection poking at him. He turned, nose-to-nose with Luis, and hesitated. Last night he had been drunk on emotion, wild with despair. It seemed as though he hadn't done one conscious thing in five years, that that morning was the first time he had woken up with a clear head. Before he could think too hard, Luis kissed him, carefully, and he wound his arms around Luis' neck. Luis' hands were at his hips, rubbing little circles against the bones. The whole lean line of him was pressed against Leon, pushing him back against the counter.

He braced himself and pushed up, evening out their height difference and then some. The Formica was cold under his skin. Luis pushed between Leon's knees and Leon let him in. When Luis bit at the cord of his neck Leon groaned, and when he slid a slick finger up behind Leon's balls, Leon arched his back and smacked his head into the cabinet.

"Tell me that's not the butter," Leon gasped.

" _No esta la mantequilla._ "

"Don't lie to me."

" _Cariño,_ I can't do both." As they spoke, Luis worked a finger into Leon's ass, stroking Leon's cock with his other hand. Leon arched as Luis leaned forward, but Luis' mouth found his ear regardless.

"Put your hand on the back of my neck," Luis murmured, barely audible. Distracted though he was, Leon complied.

"Oh, Jesus!" Luis was up to two fingers, intermittently brushing over something that made Leon see stars and shake.

"Do you feel the lump next to my carotid artery?"

"Luis-"

"Leon, please!" It was a groan. Luis, up to three fingers, pulled back slightly to look Leon in the eye. Though his pupils were blown, his breathing ragged, his expression was steady, and that steadied Leon.

"I feel it, baby," Leon sighed. The lump felt more like a cylinder, smooth-edged and just under the skin. It was about a centimeter across, and felt a few centimeters long. Luis pulled his fingers out and Leon shivered, staring.

"What-" Luis silenced Leon with a kiss, digging fingers into his hips and tugging him forward to the edge of the counter. The slick head of Luis' cock nudged at Leon's ass.

"I'll be gentle, _cariño_. Tell me if it hurts." Leon shook his head incoherently, knocking their foreheads together. He wrapped his legs around Luis' waist as Luis pushed into him, slowly despite Leon's squirming. The slow burn was unlike anything Leon had felt before. It didn't hurt as much as he'd been afraid it might, and when it was done, and Luis was buried in him to the hilt, gasping against his shoulder, Leon felt as though he had regained something he was not previously aware of losing.

" _Te-_ "

"It's a tracker." Stifling a groan, Leon knotted his fingers in Luis' hair and tried to listen with his whole body to the half-voiced whisper. "It needs to go before I can leave. Understand?"

"Yes-" Luis pulled halfway out and carefully pushed back in again, building the beginnings of a slow rhythm. Leon writhed.

"I need time to _es-_ to study. The, the files." His voice was a hot stutter in Leon's ear.

"God, _Luis,_ I _love_ you..." Helplessly. The words jolted out of him by Luis' thrusts, beginning to lose their calculated slowness.

" _Necessito un año._ One- one year."

"Oh God. _Luis._ " There would be bruises on his hips the next day, the size and shape of Luis' clever fingers.

" _Dime-_ Say you understand."

"I love you."

" _Tell me!_ " Sobbed, not whispered. Loud enough for the mics to pick up. Leon tugged at Luis' hair, pulling his attention up from where his cock pumped into Leon's body, fast and erratic, not remotely gentle. Luis met his eyes and choked, jerking as Leon felt sudden heat flood his insides.

"I do," he said first, because he had been listening. "I love you," Leon said after, for whatever Umbrella security was still watching, and because it was true. Luis pulled out, too fast, and dropped to his knees, swallowing Leon's cock in one go as Leon began to come.

Leon listened to the broken sound of his own breathing as Luis swallowed around his softening cock. One year. All Luis needed was one year, and they'd be gone from Umbrella forever.

One year, and they'd be together, free, and nobody would ever be able to touch them. They'd be unstoppable. Luis' brains, Leon's brawn, and they'd have the secrets of Umbrella in the palm of their hand.

For the first time, Leon knew where he wanted to be after the fall of Umbrella.

He could see it from where he was sitting.

Nobody was ever going to separate them again.

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know if Luis' Spanish is terrible. Please. I know Leon's Spanish is terrible, but Luis' shouldn't be, and I have trouble with a) conjugation and b) Spain Spanish (thank God he doesn't have to address more than one informal acquaintance!), so, as in subway terrorism, if you see something, say something.


End file.
